The unintended tipping over of a child's riding toy vehicle is a serious issue requiring the publication of consumer safety standards to prevent such occurrences. For instance, article F963 of the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) sets forth requirements (section 4.15.3) relating to the stability of forward and backward directional movement of a child's ride on toy. Article F963 is incorporated by reference in its entirety.
With regards to prior art children's riding toy, such a child's ride-on vehicle is shown in FIG. 1. Illustrated is a scooter having a scooter body (10) with a pair of rear wheels (12, 14) rotatably supported to a rear portion of the body (10). A seat member or defined seat portion (16) is typically provided on a rearward portion of the body (10). A transmission unit (18) having an upper control portion is positioned above the body (10), the transmission unit (18) also has a lower connecting portion extending underneath the body (10). A steering member (20) is connected to the upper control portion of the transmission unit (18) being operable to rotate the lower connecting portion of the transmission unit (18) in clockwise and anti-clockwise directions. A twister member (30) is provided which includes a driven portion connecting to the lower connecting portion of the transmission unit (18). A pair of driving wheels (21,22) are spacedly and rotatably mounted to the twister member (30) wherein the two driving wheels (21,22) are spaced from the driven portion of the twister member (30). Safety driving equipment is provided which includes a supporting arm (26) frontward extending from the driven portion of the twister member (30). A safety wheel (28) is rotatably mounted to a free end of the supporting arm (26) to support a front portion of the body (10) to prevent the child's ride-on vehicle from flipping over “frontwards” when the child's ride-on vehicle is in use.
Thus, the above described child's ride-on vehicle body (10) includes structure for preventing the child's ride-on vehicle from flipping over its front driving wheels (22,24) when a child moves too far forward relative to the child's ride-on vehicle. However, it does not include structure from preventing the child's ride-on vehicle from flipping over “backwards” when a child moves too far backwards relative to the child's ride-on vehicle.